A Royal Family, Episode 4: Love and Revolution (Documentary)

[Music] at the end of the 19th century the Danish King Christian the ninth and his Queen Luise succeeded in marrying their six children into the leading European royal families and Christian the ninth thus became known as the father-in-law of Europe today his family are found all over Europe and these royal descendants have quite exceptionally chosen to come together and talk about their family's incredible story which they know from letters and diaries and from the stories that have been passed down to them through the generations in addition the family has also made private photos and films available many of which have never been seen in public before this episode is about Christian the ninth second oldest daughter Dagmar and her son the last Tsar of Russia who together with his wife and children would be executed [Music] the two sisters Princess Alexandra and Dagmar loved spending time together and are unaware that they will one day be married to Europe's two most powerful monix brown-eyed Dagmar is the youngest of the sisters they had a very close family life they lived of a simple life because the parents work was not king and queen at that time dagmar is the only member of the family that enjoys reading and she already speaks several languages [Music] sixteen-year-old Dagmar's life now takes a dramatic turn her father has just become king of denmark her brother Vilhelm has been made king of greece and her sister alexandra has married the heir to the British throne Queen Louisa has begun to think about a marriage for her daughter Dagmar and one thing in particular must be considered when planning a royal marriage where would it be suitable to have a good connection and political relationship and so with Dave a few exceptions I think it was always an arranged marriage and in the way I think they caught on pretty well you like to love the person that it would be suitable to marry and well they had lots of children so they can't be too unhappy I would say Tsar Alexander the second of Russia's oldest son Grand Duke Nicholas announces his arrival 20 year old Nicholas is the perfect Prince not only is he very handsome he is also charming intelligent and a writer of poetry Nicholas's first photo of Dagmar had been given to him when Dagmar was just 12 years old he was entranced by the slim girl in the picture and he had collected photos of her ever since the meeting between them is a complete success Nicholas is not for a moment in doubt about his feelings for Dagmar and the feelings are clearly mutual Dagmar and Nixa as she calls him become engaged and after the engagement they scratched their names on a window of the summer palace in Fred ins bork accepting her role as the future czarina of Russia Dagmar converts to the Russian Orthodox Church Russia seemed to be her destiny and what better way to get into your new habits in your new life and by learning the language and she learnt Russian by reading hands mr. Andersson in Russian very clever and very up-to-date since he was in the middle of his glorious career at the time a loving relationship quickly develops yet Dagmar remains in Denmark when Nicholas travels to France to stay in the Tsar's villa in Nice the newly engaged couple write to each other almost daily then Nicholas's letters suddenly stop I am completely despondent that my dear little mixer writes to me so rarely I feel quite unhappy and forgotten why this awful silence she will certain him certainly in love with Nick sir Nicola Alexander's and it must have been a frightful shock when she was suddenly quite suddenly told that they had to go to nice because he was badly ill Dagmar receives a telegram from the tsar nicolai has been given the last rites pray for us and come if it's at all possible Dagmar immediately catches a train to Frankfurt from where she continues on to France in the company of the sod once in France Emperor Napoleon the third cancels all normal services on the route to niece and orders that the Tsar's special train to be driven at three times normal speed and they make it to Nicholas who is suffering from meningitis and partly paralyzed as a result when all hope was out and he was dying he personally asked his younger brother Alexander to become to overtake Douma as his fiancee Nicholas dies and his brother Alexander is proclaimed the new air even though Nicholas is dead his mother has not given up hope of having Dagmar as daughter-in-law probably in Russia we felt we had enough German blood so and everybody was relating a cousin of somebody else's so it's these these intermarriages constant in two marriages are not even good genetically in a way [Music] Dagmar's mother can also see the advantages of a Danish Russian marriage it was total fate for Alexander and he is very philosophical about what was going to happen it was there was no choice he was the next son that was it after a year of mourning Alexander arrives in Denmark and three weeks later he proposes to Dagmar Alexander is awkward and nor does he have the intelligence of his dead brother yet he is good-natured he was a great bear of a man Alexander Sasha they called him huge man immensely strong he could bend horseshoes he could bend the family silver I think it was very popular with some family but he could do it three months after Alexander's proposal 18 year-old Dagmar has to take her leave of Denmark and sails for some Petersburg to be married when the dreadful moment came when I was to take leave of my beloved Papa and Mama I could have lept into the sea from despair [Music] the six of the world's land mass is under the control of Czar Alexander the seconds empire as the Sun is setting in San Petersburg it is already beginning to rise in eastern Siberia whilst the Romanovs lifestyle is extravagant the majority of the population are impoverished peasants the Winter Palace is one of the grandest things you can imagine the palace consists of over a thousand rooms sumptuously decorated in gold silver malachite and marble every day 1200 servants skate around polishing the many thousand square meters of floor with a brush fastened to one of their feet it's quite obvious that this show of force sure of wealth was meant for every dignitary who entered to feel that now surely he must be at the very center at the very place where power is held only to discover behind the next door is even grander and God knows when he met the Tsar it must have been out of this world this is the world Dagmar arrives into from the modest conditions of Denmark and she spends her first couple of weeks in the Winter Palace learning the procedures and ceremonies of the Russian Court the Russian Court was very very stiff they were very circumscribed formal unchanging rigid and it must be very difficult for her to to adapt to that the sumptuous wedding takes place later in the year yet Dagmar's parents do not take part christian the ninth and queen louise were unable to attend their daughter's wedding because they didn't have the necessary money to give a big enough show amongst the other royal courts of Europe and they felt it was better that they stayed away instead Denmark is represented by Crown Prince Frederick while England sends Dagmar's brother-in-law the heir to the throne Edward two young men who throw themselves into the busy nightly festivities and on his wedding night the groom writes in his diary I removed my slippers and my silver woven dressing-gown and felt my love's body against my own what I then felt I have no wish to describe here we talked for a long time afterwards dagmar is given a new more Russian sounding name and as Maria Fedorovna she travels to Moscow with her husband to be officially presented in this connection a young composer has been given his first Commission and he has written a celebratory overture for the occasion the young man's name is Tchaikovsky [Music] Alexander and Maria as she's now called move into the NH cough palace in some petersburg and maria quickly learns to appreciate a life full of fantastic dresses fabulous jewels and magnificent balls she had a very happy life in russia she liked her she had became very happy with etiquette with alexander who doted on her and she became mother of a large family a year and a half after her wedding Maria's first child is born and her in-laws are present at the actual birth this bothered me immensely the Emperor held me by my one hand my Sasha by the other whilst every so often the Empress kissed me the new heir Nicholas who later will become known as the last czar is joined by further siblings in the years that follow and Alexander who is harsh in the extreme with all others is completely different when it comes to his own children he was a very very very amusing father he played games with them they played hockey on ice he liked to be with the children life becomes less secure for the imperial family during these years in Russia of course there were several of these very much leftist groups that simply had the idea that by killing the Tsar they would start a revolution and soon a clear warning is given about what the future holds the dining room in the Winter Palace is destroyed by an explosion had the dinner guests not been delayed the entire senior branch of the Romanov family would have been wiped out disaster strikes when an eighth attempt is made on the life of Maria's father-in-law two homemade bombs explode as Alexander the second is out driving near the palace and the dying Tsar is quickly taken to the Winter Palace Maria and Alexander arrive shortly after Maria who had been on her way out to skate is still wearing her blue skating uniform and she hugs her skates to her his legs were completely crushed and torn up to the knees a bleeding mass with half a boot on the right foot all that was left of the left was the sole of his foot the Tsar dies and his son is proclaimed Tsar Alexander the third whilst Maria becomes the new Zarina my peace and calm are gone for now I can never again rest assured about Sasha sir alexander ii had been something of a liberator he wanted to to improve the conditions of the poorer people of russia together with his younger brother Constantine Alexander the second had created a new democratic constitution which was ready to be made public when he was killed when Alexander the third came to the throne who was much more conservative and narrow-minded he removed his uncle grant of constant and sent him into exile in Siberia Alexander the third immediately rips the new democratic constitution into pieces Marija and Alexander soon realized that they will have to leave the capital the secret police did not like the idea of the Tsar and his whole family living inside the walls of a palace in the middle of a city that had so many entrances and so many corridors and so many rooms and you name it the family moved to a much more secure palace in Gatchina 50 kilometers from some petersburg even though Gatchina has 900 rooms the family do not live extravagantly they move into the mezzanine the former servants quarters gotcha was hard and Alexander the third chose as his apartments the lowest rooms with a low ceiling and then I don't know why I mean he he had very bad taste that let's be frank in his small study with its worn furniture Alexander indulges his passion for music and he masters everything from the drums to the tuba [Music] after two years on the throne the coronation takes place at the Kremlin at Easter the ceremony ends with the crowning of Maria Sasha placed the crown upon me after which the old matrons of Honor fastened it which was an exceedingly unpleasant moment since they always stuck in the wrong place and always in my head [Music] eight thousand guests take part in the coronation celebrations but the future is far from certain a group of students have planned to assassinate Alexander on the sixth anniversary of his father's death it is planned to take place in connection with the Imperial family's visit to the some Peter and Paul Cathedral and the students are ready with hollowed-out books filled with dynamite the police discovered it fairly early and they were tried and condemned to death to be hanged Alexander ulianov is amongst the five students who were hanged his little brother swears revenge and makes good on his oath thirty years later when he becomes known by the name Lenin [Music] Marija and Alexander's five children are now between six and 20 years old and a new serious shock awaits them all when my grandmother the grand duchess olga was about six years old they were traveling on a train with the whole family and her parents and the train was derailed and my grandmother was thrown out of the train because it turned over later she was told that her father had held the roof of the carriage up alone because he was so strong so all the family could get out of the train carriage and reach safety the imperial family survived but twenty-two others lose their lives it was never known if it was because the train was going too fast or if it was an attempt on the life of the Tsar family maria and alexander live under very tight security and russia has turned into a police state but the family have an escape the family went to denmark i believe almost every year usually in the late summer in August and September and then they always went by the sea in one of the Royal yachts on the journey to Copenhagen they are accompanied by over a hundred courtiers an incalculable amount of baggage and the cow so the children can be given fresh milk on the way Alexander or enjoyed Denmark a lot because he felt very safe and secure in this country and I think also the tone in the court at the time but also in the country in general was a very easygoing and that sort of precipitated to the joker in himself so he was a very fun-loving person and enjoyed doing jokes with the family as the swedish king oscar would find out to his cost alexander had discovered a hose in the upstairs room and he was playing around with his house he looked out the window and to his great joy king oscar was walking past Sarah let him happy to see the deficit like this with the house was furious and ran straight to King Christian and said there's dreadful children you know the day they you know and so king sent for them to be Ted it wasn't us it was discovered it was bizarre but the king of Sweden wasn't very pleased and he went away [Music] one day alexander drives into copenhagen without informing anyone they also lost himself have got lost purposely in copenhagen and wondered about on his own land and chatted up people on the street which also created a lot of a lot of panic among the russian call because they couldn't find him [Music] the air Nicholas also enjoys being in Denmark and he enjoys spending time with his taller cousins the heirs to the Greek and British Thrones and the Tsarina feels so much at home that she allows herself to be swung around by one of her nephews like her nephews and nieces Maria loves animals they went to the zoo and she was wearing a very big brimmed hat with cherries on it which seems in retrospect perhaps unwise they went to the monkey cage and when Molly got too close the monkey lunged and grabbed the hat by the cherry and this struggle ensued and eventually the monkey let go and the Hat which was held on to the head by an elastic snapped back hold the head end up over one ear much to the horror of the wearer but in the immense enjoyment not only of my grandfather but it was a little crowd of onlookers who were there too dinner is the only formal meal lunch and breakfast are managed without servants I remember my grandmother in about telling me that a breakfast Aunt Minnie which was Marie Fedorovna she had little eggs a little fatter she put next to every single person because at that time that was like a little souvenir Carl fabergé the fabulous goldsmith from some Petersburg is a regular purveyor to the Tsar the Easter eggs that Calipari made for the imperial family were simply exquisite and every year he would design a new egg that the Tsar could give to the Tsarina the first egg that Faberge makes takes its inspiration from an egg Maria's mother has in Denmark an egg full of surprises [Music] drought and famine devastate the country and millions of Russians starve to death or fall victim to a cholera epidemic the rural population heads for the cities in search of work and Russia borrows an enormous sum from France to start work on the world's longest construction project the trans-siberian railway to the Far East 1892 is also the year in which Maria and Alexander can graced the premiere of Tchaikovsky's new ballet The Nutcracker Alexander the third was an intelligent man a powerful man but he had absolutely not enough vision to change things he froze Russia Russia became a block [Music] Europe is split in two with Germany Austria and Italy on one side and Russia and France on the other Marija and Alexander's oldest son and heir Nicholas is now 25 years old and it's now his duty to marry and ensure that the dynasty continues after a direct order from his father he is forced to break off his relationship with a 17-year old Polish dancer and Maria selects a French princess as suitable match for her son in the knowledge that this can only strengthen Russia's new alliance with France but Nicholas does not share his mother's enthusiasm I wish to move in one direction and it is clear that muammar wishes me to choose the other my dream is to one day marry Alex [Music] Nicholas has fallen in love with the German princess alexandra of hessin who his parents are clearly not impressed by they do not think that the shy princess will be capable of coping with the task of being Serena yet the otherwise weak Nicholas announces that if he cannot have Alex as he calls her then he will not marry at all Alexandra third became ill and he's doctor Saab iced him that he should move to a warmer clime the Czar leaves for his palace at Livadia by the Black Sea and here he battles with a kidney illness which continues to weaken him nicholas is with his father when Alex arrives and Alexander makes her surprisingly welcome and gives his blessing to the young couple from his deathbed Maria is holding her husband when aged 49 he draws his last breath Nicholas is inconsolable nick says ii didn't like to be bursar Prussia actually when his father died he said oh no I don't want to be this arm he said I'm and what am I to do now I don't know anything not his fault Nigel it's full of his father he should give the truth have given him a proper education one week after Alexander's funeral Nicholas and Alex are married in the Winter Palace but Maria maintains her position as the country's first lady at official engagements she allows herself to be accompanied by Nicholas whilst Alex has to follow behind accompanied by one of the uncles and Maria wouldn't dream of handing over the crown jewels to Alex at the coronation it is also the Tsar's mother who rides in the most distinguished carriage immediately behind him in the cottage whilst his wife follows behind a great outdoor party is held to conclude the coronation festivities yet it turns into a disaster the crowds got panicky when they were told that they were running out of beer and food and they charged towards where the food wasn't the ones that fell in the front were trampled for the ones at the back thousands of people lose their lives but when the Imperial couple greet the crowds at the same place later in the evening they are unaware that there are still covered bodies in the area and that further bodies have been hidden under the imperial podium if the whole of Russia soon learns that the pair had accepted the crown salute whilst they sat on top on their subjects dead bodies Nicholas's rain had got off to the worst possible start [Music] Russia's new czar loves to swim this he often does with a group of officers and ideally not wearing any swimming costume Nikolas can still relax when in private [Applause] yet under the surface the family is facing serious problems after seven years marriage alex has given birth to four children but they are all girls Nikolaj did not have the same as a political stamina that his father did and at the same time his Serena was you could say probably not up to the job she was I'm sure very kind person but she was extremely naive and in overly religious in the summer of 1904 Alex finally gives birth to a son happiness was enormous not only in their family but all over Russia but this joy very soon became a tragedy demonstrators in San Petersburg demand higher wages and a shorter working week a large crowd approaches the palace because the segment wasn't in the Winter Palace at that time but his policeman and soldier was standing outside so when they saw this MOC coming against them they opened fire and they killed a lot of Russians there and after that nicholas ii was called the the bloody sod [Music] many hundreds of peaceful demonstrators have been killed and this results in dissatisfaction turning into rebellion there are mutinies in both the Army and the Navy and Nicholas is uncle is murdered rail strikes paralyzed Russia and from his study Nicholas writes to his mother after the railways the strike spread to the factories and businesses imagine the disgrace meetings a fine new fashionable word have been held where one openly and freely debated and gave support to an armed uprising Nicholas is forced to sign a constitution that promises to introduce rights for the middle classes and a democratically elected parliament the Duma [Music] the imperial family isolates itself in the Alexander palace outside of the capital Nikolas and Alex have for healthy daughters Olga Tatiana Maria and Anastasia but they bear a terrible secret about their little son he had hemophilia which he had inherited from through the female line through his mother and so he was never very strong we know how they suffered and how much it had also a negative impact on Russian politics on Russian life because this family was concentrated in in doing their best possible for the child that was sick [Music] sent for by Alex the to meet at all long hair disheveled Rasputin now makes his entrance at the palace Rasputin who has previously drawn attention to himself through his drinking and womanizing now considers himself a holy man Alex begins to venerate him when on a number of occasions he manages to stop her son Alexei is bleeding and Rasputin's starts to gain influence over the Tsar's decisions he was forced by his wife to accept her sporting he did not so much respite in himself but he was so much under the sum of his wife who would say if we don't see Rus putting and if he doesn't come our son is going to die so with that sentimental blackmail he would accept hospital but because ii was weak but somehow he was down to earth even if he had no knowledge of what was going on whereas the empress was totally lost in mystical clouds she had no link with reality whatsoever summer 1913 nine-year-old Alexa loves spending time by the water and when given the opportunity he loves using the strength he has but his illness often forces him to take it easy and when his peers fool around and swim he has to make do with conducting them from the dock any small cut might cost him his life Alexis condition is a state secret yet the population sensed that not everything is quite as it should be Alexis four sisters are now aged between 12 and 17 years old and the responsibility for their upbringing lies with their mother she never allowed the daughters to go out so they were practically they had no sense of reality and they remain very childish I never saw anyone that's why the only men they ever saw where the officers and they would play with them perhaps it would fall in love with them but they they they never saw anyone [Music] the Czar's youngest daughter 12 year old Anastasia regularly writes to her father telling him about her daily life titania and Olga Here I am sitting and digging in my nose with my left hand Olga wanted to slap me but I ran away from a Swedish hand [Music] in 1913 the Imperial couple with Alexi at their side can celebrate the fact that the Romanovs have been on the throne for 300 years yet from now on things will quickly go downhill all the European roads you had links between them my marriage my friendship this could not stop the big catastrophe 1914 [Music] the first world war breaks out and Russia is on the side of the Allies against Alex's native country Germany [Music] [Applause] Alex sets up a military hospital and together with the oldest daughters works as a nurse we were busy all morning a soldier died during an operation it was very sad the girls were brave they had never before witnessed a death know how close death is alex is a great influence on Nicholas and she constantly puts him under pressure have them tremble before you you are too friendly and everyone takes advantage of this Nicholas removes the Army's supreme commander and takes over command of the Russian troops himself be Peter the Great Ivan the Terrible Sara Pavel crushed them all under your feet do not laugh naughty boy but I desire to see you together with all these men at the same time Rasputin's influence over Alex continues to grow with all the turmoil all the political turmoil and the various smaller revolts she confided a lot more in respecting who took advantage of all this and the eventual killing of Rasputin did not come one day too early he was getting so much in the way of so many people well there that understood that this man was only a danger for Russia two counts decide to take the matter into their own hands my uncle Felix Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri hatched a plot and they invited Rasputin to the super F palace where Felix had an apartment for cakes and wine and they poisoned the cakes they poisoned the wine Rasputin ate one of the cakes and drank the wine and nothing happened in the end Felix Yusupov said enough is enough he went down and shot him and they will hit the ring say it's done and they heard noises and they looked under there he was creeping up the stairs so they lirik panic it and thus putin wanted the hell out in the courtyard here he was shot again after which he was thrown into the neva river [Music] during the First World War Russians are not doing that well and of course with the war going on and with a lot of resources being used to that wall there's a lot of hunger in st. Petersburg is also a very cold winter there and eventually the people are starting a riot [Music] the demonstrators take over power in the capital and Nicholas abdicates everything was going on so he has intimately given in so it's a certain moment when events overtook he just quit Lenin takes power during the October Revolution and establishes the Soviet Union the former Tsar is now simply known as Nicholas Romanov he has been placed under house arrest together with his wife and children many of those who should have been faithful to him actually disappeared even his cousin King George the fifth of Great Britain declines to help there was a question of the Tsar and his family coming to England being given sanctuary refuge by England and the government was prepared for that but the king is reputed to have said no he didn't think we should do that and there are various reasons given one is that he was scared that they that that a lot of people in England were rather in favor of the Russian Revolution in any case the family would find it difficult to move anywhere as all five children are ill they have measles and as a result their heads are shaved and as their hair returns they spend their time laying out a kitchen garden sir had a love for physical exercise he walked a lot he to do something he chopped wood sold logs they must have known a long time before what was going to happen to them well they just didn't didn't dare think about it after four months of house arrest the family is told that it is to move to Siberia [Music] they spend over half a year imprisoned in a house in the town of Tobolsk time passes slowly for 16 year-old Anastasia and her sisters we have furnished our room very nicely in which the four of us live together and by way of a change we often sit at the window and look at the people passing by the family has managed to take a large amount of jewellery with them which the girls in all secrecy now sew into their corsets so that no one will discover them diamonds emeralds and rubies they are soon to be sent to their final place of residence Yekaterinburg [Music] here they are kept locked up in a villa which Lenin's Bolsheviks call the house of special purpose and despite the fact that the First World War is yet to reach its conclusion Nicholas is informed that Russia must renounce large areas of her territory today telegrams arrived with a message that the Bolsheviks have entered into an armistice under the German government's humiliating conditions it's a nightmare the family now lives completely isolated from the rest of the world this morning an old decorator gave all the windows in our room a coat of whitewash Nicholas is aware that things are clearly not as they should be our guards avoid speaking with us as if they'd rather not get involved and one can feel that they are uneasy and worried the family is woken in the middle of the night and told that due to disturbances in town they are to move into the cellar for their own protection yet the reality of the situation is somewhat different they are made to stand in line after which shots are heard to ring out for two to three minutes [Music] the officer responsible for the execution is unaware that the girls have sewn jewels into their corsets LXi and three of his sisters were still alive they had to be finished off this surprised the Commandant as we'd aimed for the heart it was also surprising that the bullets from the pistols ricocheted off something and jumped about the room when they tried to finish off one of the girls with bayonets the bayonet could not pierce the corset thanks to all of this the entire procedure took around 20 minutes the bodies were thrown down a mine shaft to start with and then they were taken out and they tried to put acid and burn them and that didn't work either so because they were in a hurry to get rid of the evidence they then dumped them in a swamp [Music] Nicholas's mother Maria has fled to the Crimea together with her daughter's where she is informed that her son and his entire family have been killed but she refused to talk about it even to to go to a special pair at the local church because she said no I don't want to believe it in March 1919 soldiers of the Red Army began an advance on the Crimea that's the situation worsened her sister Alexandra sent a battleship to the Crimea of the HMS Marlborough to get her reluctantly Maria packs her bags forced to leave the country she has been devoted to for more than 50 years HMS Marlborough sells her and her daughter senior to safety her other daughter Olga will follow later [Music] on her arrival in britain maria is received by her sister whom she now despises maria has difficulty accepting that alexandra has become old and weak and that alexandra is the most popular woman in the country and maria fedorovna was only a political refugee so to speak and having been known to be somewhat vain also i'm sure that it did not please her majesty to not be the her majesty in the country which she was so she went to Denmark which also looked very dearly and there she was sort of a one of her own kind initially Maria moves into a million Borg where her nephew King Christine the tenth also resides they do not get on particularly well and when the frugal Danish King one day asks his stubborn aren't to avoid using too many lights she promptly ensures that every light in the palace is turned on to everyone's satisfaction maria chooses to move to the outskirts of copenhagen to villa the villa she bought many years ago as a summer house together with her sister Alexandra and many as she was very loved in looking lady in her age and she received doesn't she had one of these old Cossacks fantastic big men who was a sort of like a prince man you know they're like what do you call him but he had bodyguards and I call these people nowadays he was always of on video to God her Maria Fedorovna who was born as Dagmar 80 years ago dies in 1928 [Music] she is buried in Denmark a long way from her beloved Alexander back in 1901 Maria's second oldest daughter Olga was married for the first time when my grandmother reached the age of 18 she was told that she had to marry and one of her relatives Prince Peter of oldenburg proposed to her the arranged marriage with a nearly twice as old Peter of oldenburg turns into a nightmare for Olga she did not know that Peter was not interested in women as women but only as friends and this made their marriage quite impossible meanwhile Olga falls in love with a tall officer Nikolai Kolakowski her husband refuses to annul the marriage offering instead to make Kolakowski his personal adjutant which would allow the officer to move into the couple's private residence Kolakowski serves the ill-matched couple for 13 years before Olga and he are finally given permission to marry princess Olga and her husband Greek offski then settled in Denmark after her mother after her mother died and and they lived very modestly they have two sons and in 1932 they buy a farm outside Copenhagen which they run themselves they went to the market and to lift himself stories and vegetables and all sorts of funny thing there Olga is an accomplished artist and she supplements the family's income by selling her paintings yet in 1948 the family leaves Denmark they were worried that that the situation might also deteriorate in Denmark that Denmark might also fall under Soviet empire and so they moved to Canada here they live in ever more modest circumstances initially on a farm and later in a small house the last grand duchess of russia dies a poor widow in 1960 amongst her descendants are her grandchild senior kholokov Sookie who grows up with her paternal grandmother in Canada and a great grandchild Paul Kolakowski both have spent the majority of their lives in Denmark dmitry romanov a descendant of tsar nicholas the first also lives in Denmark whilst his older brother Nikolai who's the current Romanov family patriarch lives in Switzerland Maria's oldest daughter senior who had fled Russia together with her mother spent the rest of her life in England and many of her descendants including Olga Romanov continued to live in England today eighty years after their execution the remains of nicholas ii and his family are buried in a ceremony in some petersburg empress held in the fortress of submissions from paul because that is where czars had been buried since the church was built the remains of the imperial family were found in 1979 and have since been identified with the help of DNA testing yet not all the children were there they're missing two members of the family it's the boy Alexei and one of the conductor's may amongst others present at the funeral are Dmitry and Nikolai Romanov as well as Prince Michael of Kent when President Yeltsin arrives Nikolai Romanov is suddenly informed that he has to receive the president so I took Michael of Kent who's standing next to me he was only close relative fallen closer sugar eggs and Michael do come alone he looked so much like Tsar Nicholas I sought to make a good impression on the Edison and then he went shook hands with Michael I kiss mrs. Yeltsin Sancho's already crying she cried through the whole ceremony [Music] in the next episode we will meet the father-in-law of Europe's middle son Prince Wilhelm who is made king of Greece age 17 years old we will hear about a boy who becomes king aged 6 and a king who dies after being bitten by an ape there was nobody who had the courage to cut the Kings leg off there was no penicillin in those days and he died of gangrene [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Scandinavian Royalty

Views: 815,008

Keywords: crown prince frederik, prince joachim, crown prince haakon, grand duchess josephine-charlotte, queen elizabeth ii, queen margrethe ii, prince michael of kent, queen alexandra, queen victoria, prince albert, king christian ix, tsar nicholas ii, empress maria feodorovna, empress alexandra feodorovna, royal, royalty, royal family, danish royal family, swedish royal family, norwegian royal family, british royal family, russian imperial family, luxembourguish grand ducal family

Id: jOGjEw9Gr04

Length: 52min 30sec (3150 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 13 2017